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Critics Consensus: U-Turn is a lurid, stylish lark that boasts striking moments but lacks the focus and weight of Oliver Stone best work.
Critic Consensus: U-Turn is a lurid, stylish lark that boasts striking moments but lacks the focus and weight of Oliver Stone best work.
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All Critics (50) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (30) | Rotten (20) | DVD (4)
The best art of any age typically comes from the dysfunctional artist, and U-Turn is just that -- Stone's oddball glimpse into a shadow America that no one wants to believe exists but that undoubtedly does.
As the first Oliver Stone movie to gleefully dispense with sociopolitical significance, U-Turn is an overdue event, a chance for Stone to apply his hypnotic acid-trip-of-the-soul wizardry to something sexy and lowdown.
The stylistic fun Stone has in dramatizing this crime of passion thoroughly revitalizes the well-worked genre.
Penn turns in a crisp, unfussy comic performance, Lopez vamps like a scorpion in heat, Nolte sustains a pretty good John Huston impression, and Thornton is mighty peculiar as the mechanic from hell.
It's a disappointing ride.
It's so empty emotionally it's difficult to see what the point is, unless it's the celebration of emptiness, an aim that has become so familiar recently it hardly seems worth the trouble everyone has gone to.
With the exception of 1988's lacerating Talk Radio, U Turn might be the most forgotten film in Oliver Stone's canon -- a shame, since it offers sinful pleasures for those willing to take the ride.
It's a feast for the senses, as long as you have a strong stomach.
This long, strange trip is fun but aimless.
Viewers who don't need depth and can ignore technique overkill along with social critique nonsense, should enjoy the bumpy ride offered by 'U Turn.'
One of Stone's best narrative, and thought-provoking, efforts to date.
A bad trip flick.
A very poor movie for Sean Penn, don't think this one did much for him. Its one of those movies you start to watch and think about turning it off, but you watch till the end just to see if something happens. 2 stars. 8-20-12
Super Reviewer
Oliver Stone's surreal nightmare.
Many ripped this one, and while you can easily point a bunch of really annoying things going on (Lopez character and Penn beign tricked again and again) this is an enjoyable romp for us who prefer more acid and less optimistic stories. Not to mention that compared with what Stone has being doing in the last years, it's gold.
An amazing Neo-Noir/Western that's almost impossible to not enjoy on at least some level. The story is incredibly well-written and the characters are perfectly twisted. Sean Penn delivers a great performance as Bobby Cooper, in debt and in need of a break. There's also soe great supporting performances from Billy Bob Thorton, Nick Nolte and Joaquin Phoenix to name a few. It's very much the same kind of irony that is present in most Noirs, that you never get off easy. It's also one of the best shot Oliver Stone movies, but that tends to be the case with every single one of his movies. I loved the use of over-exposure and 16mm film every once in a while.
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